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Iran allows U.N. team to visit secret military site

IAEA inspectors revisit Parchin to scrutinise nuclear programme

VIENNA: Iran has granted U.N. nuclear inspectors new access to a high-security military site as part of efforts to avoid referral to the Security Council, diplomats said on Wednesday. The diplomats said experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency were allowed to revisit Parchin as they try to establish whether Teheran has a secret nuclear weapons programme.

Links to arms?

Parchin has been linked by the United States and other nations to alleged experiments linked to nuclear arms. The IAEA had for months been trying to follow up on a visit in January for further checks of buildings and areas within the sprawling military complex as it looks for traces of radioactivity.

That visit — which was closely controlled by authorities — revealed no such traces.

But one of the diplomats, who like the others requested anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media about the sensitive investigation, said over the past few days IAEA inspectors had ``gained access to buildings'' previously out of bounds to them. The diplomat, who is close to the agency, said environmental swipes were taken from objects in the buildings and would be analysed at IAEA laboratories.

If those swipes reveal minute amounts of radioactivity, they would strengthen suspicions of nuclear-related work at Parchin.

Because Parchin is run by the armed forces, such a discovery would weaken Iranian arguments that its nuclear programmes are strictly non-military.

That would strengthen sentiment that Teheran be referred to the U.N. Security Council for breaching the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as early as November 24, when the IAEA's 35-nation board of Governors has its next meeting.

The swipe results are expected before then. — AP

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